Does anybody have any information or know where I can find information on the history FINA? Or anything about why swimming has the heirarchy that it does?
Thanks so much!
Seagurl51:
FINA used to have a book that was available for sale called the "History of FINA" that was on there website a couple of years ago but its not listed currently. I have never read that book but can recommend 2 books that detail a history of FINA and one of those books is thru a swimming person.
The first book is called "The Olympics The History of the Modern Games" by Allen Guttmann that was published back in 1994. He has sections in the book about the origins of FINA and how it was established back in 1908 at the London Olympics as the oldest international governing body of the International Olympic Committee. Eight Nations were represented and the USA was not one of them and all of the nations were from Europe. Max Ritter, who at that time represented Germany became an American and was heavily involved in swimming up until 1970. You can still puchase this book from used book stores and book websites.
The second book and I believe to be one of the best swimming books ever written about FINA is called "A Sports Odyssey Jounal of an Olympic Wife" by Jean M. Henning. She wrote the book based on memoirs from her husband, Dr. Harold Henning who was the last person from the USA to be Prsident of FINA. In fact, he served as Secretary of FINA from 1968 to 1972 and then was President until 1980. It details behind the scenes events and the international politics regarding FINA with the Olympics and the World Swimming Championships. Jean Henning has also written one of the most popular swim books of all time called "Six Days to Swim" about one of our own USMS legends Jeff Farrell.
You can buy this book thu the International Swimming Hall Of Fame book shop. I will leave a link.
www.ishof.org/publications.htm
